


conditioner

by discosteves (floralathena)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, Hairdresser Steve Harrington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 21:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17711543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralathena/pseuds/discosteves
Summary: “This is a straightening iron. It can make your hair look more like mine, but only for a little bit. A couple hours to a couple days, depending on how you treat your hair before and after. It’s very hot. Don’t touch it.”Jane nods very seriously. She’s touched a lot of hot things, on purpose and on accident, in the past few months. The straightening iron is lying on the counter, angled so that the hot bits are hanging over the sink. Steve’s hands rest on her shoulders as he stands behind her. He is making eye contact with her in the mirror. She looks a lot shorter than him because she’s sitting on a stool that he dragged in from the kitchen.





	conditioner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hexicity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexicity/gifts).



“This is a straightening iron. It can make your hair look more like mine, but only for a little bit. A couple hours to a couple days, depending on how you treat your hair before and after. It’s very hot. Don’t touch it.”

Jane nods very seriously. She’s touched a lot of hot things, on purpose and on accident, in the past few months. The straightening iron is lying on the counter, angled so that the hot bits are hanging over the sink. Steve’s hands rest on her shoulders as he stands behind her. He is making eye contact with her in the mirror. She looks a lot shorter than him because she’s sitting on a stool that he dragged in from the kitchen.

“Your hair is really nice, kid. I know plenty of people that would kill to have curls like yours. That one over there is a curling iron, for those unlucky shmucks. It’s not hot right now because I’m not gonna use it today, but, you know, that’s what it looks like. If a curling iron is really thin, it’s gonna make curls a lot like yours, and if it’s really thick, it makes waves. Does that… make sense?”

She nods again. Steve nods back at her, pats her shoulders, and puts the curling iron back into the cabinet under his bathroom sink.

“Okay, double checking, you really want me to straighten your hair today?” he asks. It’s the third time he asked her, not the second, which is what double is for, but she doesn’t correct him. 

“Yes,” she says. “Please,” she adds as an afterthought.

“Alright, kiddo, let’s start the magic. Not, uh, your magic. Hair magic.” 

“Steve magic,” she says, and he smiles at her in the mirror. 

“Yeah, that. Alright, so even though your hair can’t feel, heat can still damage it. You’ll want to use a heat-resistant spray like this before you use a curling or straightening iron.”

He shows her the bottle. It looks kind of like the cleaning stuff Hopper has in his cabinets, but pink. Then he starts gently lifting and stretching out her hair, spraying every part. It doesn’t look wet, though. The spray smells kind of gross but also kind of like fruit, which is weird. He puts it down on the counter and uses his hands to spread it through her hair, which is weird but also kind of nice. 

“Can you hand me the comb?” he says. Jane looks at all of the things on the counter and is conflicted between two. She points at the one with a handle.

“Nah, that’s the brush. Same idea, but combs are better for curly hair. We can use the brush after it’s straight, but I don’t think you’ll need it.”

She hands him the comb. Mike and Lucas are yelling at each other in the other room. It makes her nervous until she realizes that they’re arguing about dice. 

“See how I’m not pulling too hard? It shouldn’t, like, hurt, and if you have a knot, you should work it out, not just tear through it. I mean, you probably know that, but I don’t really trust Hopper to have taught you anything about hair care. Has he taught you anything about hair care?”

She thinks. “You wash it,” she says. “Shampoo.”

“No conditioner?” Steve asks, sounding shocked.

“What’s conditioner?”

“Oh my god.”

Steve is still using the comb on her hair, and he shakes his head like he’s disappointed. Jane looks at all the stuff on the counter. There are a bunch of little purple clips, and a couple other spray bottles, and one bottle that looks like lotion. She squints at the lotion-y looking bottle and picks it up.

“Conditioner?” she asks, pointing at the word on the front. It starts with a C, which is the “cuh” sound, and she sees e-r on the end, which is the “er” sound. 

Steve smiles at her. “Hey, yeah, dude! This is the kind you put on dry hair and leave in. There’s another kind that you use in the shower, after the shampoo. It’s kind of like shampoo, but instead of cleaning your hair, it like… makes it better. Like, moisturizes it.”

She doesn’t know “moisturizes” yet, but he’s gonna use the conditioner on her, so she’ll probably find out. Even though there’s nothing wrong with asking what a word means, it feels better to find out. Like she’s solving a mystery. Steve is quiet for a while, combing through her hair until his fingers don’t catch on anything. He isn’t making eye contact anymore, focusing on her hair. She closes her eyes. It’s nice, his fingers gentle and never pulling, not even a little bit. Steve sighs and she opens her eyes again.

“Kid, I’ve literally been trying to think of a decent way to explain conditioner and I can’t think of any. It just… makes your hair softer. And smoother. Which is important, because heat tools can dry it out.”

That makes sense. Heat evaporates water, and water is in everything. Even hair and people. It makes a lot of sense, except she still doesn’t  _ really  _ understand it. It makes enough sense. Steve leans over her to grab two of the purple clips. He gathers up some of the hair on the top of her head and pulls it further up, clipping it in place. 

“So I can reach the hair at the bottom easier,” he says. She nods.

“Okay, straightening time. Sit still and don’t make me burn you.” He picks up the iron and snaps it at her. She laughs. It’s funny because even though she hasn’t known him for too long, she knows that Steve would never hurt anybody. At least he would never hurt anybody unless they deserved it. Like how he hurt Max’s brother who is an asshole and a real piece of shit and a dickhead and a lot of other things that Lucas told her she shouldn’t repeat around adults (unless they, like, totally deserved it).

“Steve, are you an adult?” 

“As far as you little shits are concerned, yes,” he replies, which is very confusing and not really helpful. He pulls a bit of her hair out until it’s straight, and shuts the straightening iron around it. She can feel the heat on her scalp, but it’s not touching so it’s mostly okay. He pulls it away from her head slowly until he reaches the end of her hair and the iron falls off. 

“See? Want to feel it?” 

“Yes,” she says, and reaches back to feel around for it. There it is- a strip of hair that’s not a curl anymore. She can’t tell if she likes it or not. 

“Keep going,” she says and lets her hand fall back into her lap. 

“Whatever you say, boss,” he says and does a salute with the iron. It’s funny. 

“You’re funny,” she says. 

“Just doing my job.” 

They’re quiet while he keeps working. Jane doesn’t have a lot of hair, but Steve still takes a long time pulling the iron down each bit, so it’s slower than she thought it would be. He looks very focused. Once he’s done all the bottom bits, he combs through them all and goes over some of them a second time. Eventually, he must decide they’re all straight enough because he unclips the top bits and starts on them. He starts using the comb with the straightener, pulling her hair out with the comb and following it with the iron. It looks very professional, like he knows what he’s doing. 

“Do you have a job?” she asks. “You should do hair. That’s a job.”

“Nah, I don’t have a job. Well, not a real one. Yet. I’m gonna try to get something part-time when that new mall opens, I think.”

“Doing hair?” 

He laughs. “No, not doing hair.”

“Why?”

“Well, because. You need, like, a certificate or something. And I’m a guy.”

She’s confused. “What?”

Steve scrunches his face up a little bit. “You need to be certified to do hair. So that people don’t come to your salon for a haircut and end up with their ear chopped off because you didn’t know what you were doing.”

She huffs. “No. Guy?”

His face changes. “Oh. Well, you know, doing hair is kind of… girly. Not that that’s bad! Girly stuff can be cool.”

“Then why?” 

He huffs like she did. “I don’t know. Guys just… aren’t supposed to do stuff like that.”

“Stupid,” Jane says. She looks at Steve in the mirror. He looks a little sad.

“Steve,” she says, and he meets her eyes again. “Stupid.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he says after a pause. “Stupid.”

He laughs a little and looks at the floor for a second before he goes back to her hair. It’s almost all straight now. Jane hates it a little bit. It’s still so much shorter than Nancy and Miss Joyce and all the girls on TV have their hair. She thought it might get longer. It’s a  _ little _ longer, sure, but still too short. She can’t make a ponytail or a braid with it. 

“It’s short,” she says. It’s disappointing.

Steve is on the last bit. 

“You think so? I think it looks a lot longer,” he says casually. “Definitely prettier than a lot of heat-styled hair. Not many people can pull off curly  _ and _ straight, you know. You must have awesome natural hair, for it to take heat so well without you ever using conditioner.”

He looks at her hair, nods, and unplugs the iron. He sets it back on the counter, the hot parts hanging over the sink. 

“Really?” she asks.

“Oh, hell yeah. So many people’s hair just can’t take it. You’re really strong.”

Jane thinks he probably meant to say  _ yours is  _ really strong, but she doesn’t correct him. 

“...Bitchin.”

Steve smiles and grabs the conditioner off the counter. “You want to do it or do you want me to show you how?” 

“Show me,” she says. She doesn’t actually watch much. He starts at the bottom and works up, rubbing the conditioner in. Her hair looks… shinier. Moisturized, she thinks. Steve talks some more about conditioner, about why he likes this kind more than some other kind, and she hasn’t heard a lot of the words he’s saying but it’s still nice to listen to. He picks up another container called pomade and rubs the goop between his hands a lot before he starts putting it in her hair. It smells familiar. 

“Smells nice,” she says.

“Aw, thanks, I use this kind because of the smell. I mean, not just because it smells nice, it works really well too, but also because of the smell. I figured you’d prefer this over hairspray.”

Steve figured right. She has smelled hairspray, when Miss Joyce used a bunch on her for the Snow Ball, and it is not a good smell at all. He is standing in front of her now, blocking the mirror as he scrunches and moves her hair in different ways until he likes it. 

She looks at his face. He doesn’t really look like an adult. 

“You ready for the big reveal?” he asks.

“Yes.” 

Steve claps his hands together once and moves out of the way. 

“What do you think?”

Jane does not know what to think. Her hair doesn’t really look like any other girl’s that she’s seen. It’s shorter, and it’s not super big or curly or super straight. It isn’t like any guy’s either, though, not like Steve’s or like Hopper’s. Steve’s made it curve a little bit outwards all around, so none of it is in her face, and when she moves her head it’s flippy and slippery and nice, and even though it’s short it’s kind of…. 

“Pretty,” she whispers. 

“Yeah?” Steve asks. She looks at him. He looks unsure. 

She stands up and hugs him. “Pretty. Thank you.”

He hugs her back, squeezing her but not touching her hair.

“Anytime. Tell Hopper to buy you some damn conditioner.” 


End file.
